12 years, 51 weeks and five days

We spent Saturday at Ikea - Youngest is turning 13 this week and our gift to him is a new bedroom.
Youngest has been sleeping, in his huge bedroom, in the one of the beds that K built, when he was a baby. And they are beautiful beds - but really best suited for someone much younger than 13. The rest of the furniture was kind of a mash-up of small child stuff and outcast things from the rest of the house, so he researched and planned, and worked on line to create a new bedroom set.



Armed with this diagram, drawn from an Ikea wardrobe catalogue we received, he worked at the Ikea website and created the order for the entire system.
He brought two sheets of typed specifications to an Ikea salesperson, who consulted with Youngest while making slight adjustments (Ikea no longer makes white doors for this wardrobe system)and ordered all of it.



We walked around gathering curtains, duvet cover, a hamper, and assorted hardware before we retrieved the order that made up the wardrobes Youngest had designed.

While K checked in with the office, Youngest and I sat and waited for the trolley with the wardrobe to be brought to us.
I panicked a little when I saw the size of the order - and the receipt.



We decided not to look at the total, Youngest and I, but to measure his height with it instead.
With our three trolleys of bedroom, we made our way to the car...
Me nervous, K aggravated with work, Youngest grateful and quiet.
How would we get all of it in the car, I wondered...would we need to make two trips...would K be okay? His hands are just healed but his knee and elbow are still tender (and his back isn't great).
Happily, we met John.
John the Ikea car packing master -



He even made room for Youngest to sit in the car (I might have slipped him in with the parcels.)



It's a good thing he isn't taller.



And then, with a flourish of twine and weaving -



John succeeded in closing up our truck and sending us, gingerly, on our way.

At home, a brigade of boys unloaded the car. A neighbor delighted in relieving us of some of the old furniture. We emptied the room of almost everything, cramming all of Youngest's personal possessions into my room, making it impossible to get to the bed or bathroom.

K was very patient while Youngest "helped" build -



By eight that evening the shell of the wardrobe had been built, and Youngest was snuggled into his new, grown-up, bed with a very mature duvet cover.



He seemed proud and tired and I left him to clean the kitchen, retrieve Middle and close up the house.
I thought of the time my parents bought me a bedroom set - of stretching out on my new bed and admiring my new room, of feeling older and excited for having made my own room, for having decided for the first time about my own environment.
So that's what I guessed Youngest would do.
But it turned out that the duvet cover was a little itchy, and he seemed a little lonely.
In the morning he told us he hardly slept all night.
In the shuffle of rooms and belongings, blankie ended up somewhere in my room.
And Youngest could not sleep without it.